Trustbusters Seek Microsoft Code

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Trustbusters Seek Microsoft Code

WASHINGTON – The US Justice Department has filed a motion to compel Microsoft to turn over certain key documents and make Bill Gates available to answer the government's questions in the broad antitrust action that charges the company with illegally flexing its monopoly muscle.

In documents filed late Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said Microsoft should be required to turn over the source code files of certain versions of Windows 95 and Windows 98.

The federal trustbusters rejected Microsoft's refusal to make Gates available for more than eight hours of questioning, saying he should be compelled to provide deposition testimony for "no less than two consecutive days."

"Mr. Gates has personal knowledge about every aspect of this matter which cannot be obtained through other sources," the Justice Department said in its filing.

Microsoft rejected the department's motion, and said the eight hours of chairman Gates' time that the company has offered the Justice Department "is a perfectly reasonable period of time."

Spokesman Jim Cullinan said Microsoft has cooperated with investigators for the past 18 months but has been given a relatively short time to prepare for the trial that starts 8 September.

But in its filing, the Justice Department said Microsoft has refused to hand over the source code files, calling its request for the documents burdensome and irrelevant. Microsoft also argues that turning over the files would require disclosure of "extremely confidential, highly sensitive trade secrets."

The Justice Department rejected that claim as disingenuous, saying that Microsoft's legal assertions regarding the technical design of its software could only be countered by analyzing its source code.

It said Microsoft's confidentiality worries were addressed in a June agreement, but that it did not extend to the files.

Microsoft is now requiring that the states and the federal government enter into a commercial license agreement for its source code, the Justice Department said in its motion.

"The terms of the license agreement are so oppressive that entering into such an agreement would literally eliminate plaintiff's ability to utilize any competent technical expert," the Justice Department said in its discovery motion.

Microsoft, in its first legal response to the case, last week denied all charges and asked US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to dismiss state and federal antitrust charges as groundless.